1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system, a control method for the printing system, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a plurality of printers is used in a company, a plurality of PCs and the plurality of printers are connected via a communication network. In this manner, users can share and use the printer. A conventional printer executes all printer jobs received regardless the type of print job. However, as a communication network is broadened and connected to other hubs or outside a company, an unknown user must be prevented from using the printer. Hence the printer came to be equipped with a user authentication function, and a user ID and a password came to be saved in the printer. However, this method leads to a cumbersome management in the case where there are a number of printers. Thus, a method is generally applied where a dedicated authentication server unifies management of user information, and the printer queries the dedicated server when the user authentication is required.
Also, for reducing print costs, a manager is required for comprehending management conditions. Thus, a technique is provided in which the number of printed sheets is counted for each user and managed. The printer authenticates a user ID when executing printing, counts the number of printed sheets after the printing, and combines the number of printed sheets and the user ID. Then, by transmitting the number of printed sheets and the user ID by the printer to the counting server, the counting server counts the number of printed sheets for each user ID. With this technique, a manager acquires the result of the counting of the number of printed sheets for each user and manages it.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-165725 discloses a method by which, when there are two different printing systems, a server superior to the systems is installed, collects count information, management information and the like from the respective systems to thereby integrally manage the systems. However, this method assumes that one user uses an identical user ID in the different systems. Thus, the method does not consider the case where one user has two different user IDs for the respective printing systems. Therefore, when one user has two different user IDs for the respective printing systems, an integral management for each user cannot be realized.